Our Privacy Commitment: We will not sell or give your e-mail address to any other person or company. We will only send you our This Week in Congress Newsletter, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

These Liberal and Conservative Ratings for the House of Representatives are frequently updated as new bills are introduced, members of the House cosponsor existing bills, and new roll call votes are held. Our most recent update: September 13, 2012.

The respect and pursuit of empirical knowledge through support for science and education

Protection of the Earth's environmental richness

Strengthening of economic opportunity for all

Pursuit of peaceful solutions and opposition to militarism in policy

A score of 0 means that Representative Giffords has participated in 0% of our slate of liberal actions in the 112th Congress.
Representative Giffords has failed to take any of the slate of liberal actions we have identified for the 112th Congress.
Liberal Bills Congresswoman Giffords has failed to support through cosponsorship:

Contrary to the predictions of defenders of offshore drilling, expansion of offshore drilling has done little to drive down the price of oil. Since President Obama announced that new deepwater drilling for oil will be allowed, the price of oil has gone up, not down. The cost of a barrel of oil is now nearing 100 dollars. If we want to control the cost of energy, we need diversification of energy sources, not just the same old desperate search for oil. Offshore drilling needs to be phased out, not pumped up.
Given the continuing influence of big oil companies over Congress and the White House, is there anything be done to move the USA away from the dangers of offshore drilling? Yes. There are leaders in the House of Representatives who are seeking who are working to reduce the risk created by offshore drilling. H.R. 261 would prohibit new leases for offshore drilling in American waters.

Rep. Giffords has failed to cosponsor H.R. 261. After you read the bill, call Rep. Giffords's office at 520-459-3115 and ask her to support it by adding her cosponsorship.

H.R. 336 is a bill that responds to incidents of financial corporations raising interest rates as many as 30 percentage points on credit card users, even when those holding credit cards keep up with their payments and aren't late sending in their checks. If passed into law, the bill would cap annual interest rates for credit cards and other lines of credit in America to 15%, inclusive of fees. Also known as the Interest Rate Reduction Act, this bill would preserve the ability of credit card corporations to make a profit while protecting Americans from usurious financial exploitation.

Rep. Giffords has failed to cosponsor H.R. 336. After you read the bill, call Rep. Giffords's office at 520-459-3115 and ask her to support it by adding her cosponsorship.

It's a dirty little secret: oil companies have a special law passed that lets them off the hook for the damage caused by their regular disasters. Thanks to that special law, oil companies aren't liable for environmental and other damages over $75 million caused by their practices. H.R. 492, the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act, would remove that cap in liability for offshore drilling disasters, so that oil companies would pay for the damage they inflict.

Rep. Giffords has failed to cosponsor H.R. 492. After you read the bill, call Rep. Giffords's office at 520-459-3115 and ask her to support it by adding her cosponsorship.

Thereís no better investment in our society than an investment in the education of a young child. Children who get early schooling do better later on, both educationally and professional, strengthening our nationís economic productivity. Parents benefit too, able to work more, making contributions of their own to society, and reducing their dependence on social programs.

If parents have to pay for preschool thatís as expensive as their income, early education becomes a very difficult choice. H.R. 555, introduced this week by Dennis Kucinich, seeks to fill in that gap by supporting state governments in their efforts to provide universally affordable but not mandatory year-round pre-K school.

Rep. Giffords has failed to cosponsor H.R. 555. After you read the bill, call Rep. Giffords's office at 520-459-3115 and ask her to support it by adding her cosponsorship.

As it is currently written, the Federal Motor Carrier Act does not allow states and municipalities to establish environmental safeguards for ports that are more stringent than the federal standard. H.R. 572, the Clean Ports Act, removes this impediment so communities can add environmental protections for the ports whose cleanliness and integrity they rely upon.

Rep. Giffords has failed to cosponsor H.R. 572. After you read the bill, call Rep. Giffords's office at 520-459-3115 and ask her to support it by adding her cosponsorship.

The oil industry is one of the most profitable enterprises on the planet, and yet the same oil industry gets a load of special tax breaks from its friends in government. H.R. 601, the End Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act, cuts nearly $40 billion in subsidies to the oil industry, ending rewards for environmentally dirty practices and restoring some balance to the federal budget.

Rep. Giffords has failed to cosponsor H.R. 601. After you read the bill, call Rep. Giffords's office at 520-459-3115 and ask her to support it by adding her cosponsorship.

Did you know that there is an exemption for hydraulic fracturing written into the Safe Drinking Water Act? The procedure commonly known as "fracking" involves the injection of a variety of toxic chemicals into the ground in order to fracture underground shale and extract natural gas. These toxic chemicals can enter an area's underground drinking water supply or later be dumped as wastewater into America's rivers. H.R. 1084 would require the contents of fracking fluids to be publicly disclosed as needed to protect the public health, just as with other toxic discharges.

Rep. Giffords has failed to cosponsor H.R. 1084. After you read the bill, call Rep. Giffords's office at 520-459-3115 and ask her to support it by adding her cosponsorship.

1. When used, they are distributed in large numbers across terrain;
2. They have a high failure rate, leaving many unexploded bombs;
3. They are small and typically shiny, disproportionately attracting the hands of curious children.

Cluster bombs are designed to kill people, not to damage buildings or roads. Like land mines, they continue to kill people long after the battle in which they were used. It is typical for a large number of these smaller bombs to remain undetonated, waiting to explode, after their initial deployment.

The Federation of American Scientists' report on the matter makes clear the danger of cluster munitions: "40 percent of the duds on the ground are hazardous and for each encounter with an unexploded submunition there is a 13 percent probability of detonation. Thus, even though an unexploded submunition is run over, kicked, stepped on, or otherwise disturbed, and did not detonate, it is not safe. Handling the unexploded submunition may eventually result in arming and subsequent detonation."

Cluster bombs kill civilians when they are used. Our government knows this, and yet our government continues to manufacture, use and sell cluster bombs to foreign countries.

The Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act forbids the United States government from spending money to use, sell or transfer cluster bombs unless the following requirements are met:

The cluster bombs are proven to have a 1 percent or lower rate of malfunction

The cluster bombs will not be used against anything but a clearly defined military target, in an area where there are no civilians and in places where civilians do not ordinarily live

A plan is submitted, with the costs included, for cleaning up all the undetonated explosives that come from cluster bombs, whether they are used by the US military, or by other countries to whom the United States has supplied the cluster bombs

There is a waiver in the law for the first requirement (for the malfunctioning rate of 1 percent or lower), in cases in which it is "vital" to use cluster bombs in order to protect the security of the United States. However, even in such cases, the President is required to submit a report to Congress which explains how civilians will be protected from the cluster bombs, and revealing the failure rate of the cluster bombs, as well as whether the cluster bombs are equipped with self-destruct functions.

Rep. Giffords has failed to cosponsor H.R. 996. After you read the bill, call Rep. Giffords's office at 520-459-3115 and ask her to support it by adding her cosponsorship.

In 2010 there were 22,000 mercenaries hired by the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan; in 2011 the number of hired mercenaries climbed to more than 28,000. By March 2011, there were more private military contractors paid by the U.S. in Iraq than there were U.S. soldiers. Jan Schakowsky, the sponsor of this bill to end the use of mercenaries for traditional military security and combat roles, explains why this is a problem:

"Military officers in the field have said contractors operate like cowboys, using unnecessary and excessive force uncharacteristic of enlisted soldiers. In 2007, guards working for a firm then known as Blackwater were accused of killing 17 Iraqis, damaging the U.S. mission in Iraq and hurting our reputation around the world. Later that year, a contractor employed by DynCorp International allegedly shot and killed an unarmed taxi driver."

Military contractors have often acted with disregard for human dignity and when they break the law have frequently used loopholes to escape accountability. The result is inexcusable, violence in the name of the United States with no calls for justice. H.R. 2665 would finally bring this physical, psychological and political disaster to an end.

Rep. Giffords has failed to cosponsor H.R. 2665. After you read the bill, call Rep. Giffords's office at 520-459-3115 and ask her to support it by adding her cosponsorship.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has not taken any conservative action on the That's My Congress scorecard during the 112th Congress.

Recent legislative news in which Gabrielle Giffords plays a part:

Roll Call of the Vote on the Big Budget Cut BillIf you look on the list of roll call votes taken by the House of Representatives that's maintained by the Library of Congress for a vote on the debt ceiling increase legislation passed by the House this evening, you won't find it. There's nothing with the word "budget" or "cuts" or "spending" or "debt ceiling" to be found there.
What you will find is a vote on S. 365, a bill "to make a technical amendment to the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002". That's because, in order to rush legislation to increase the debt ceiling and mandate immense cuts to important programs throughout our country's federal government, without many people having the chance to actually read the bill, Speaker of the House John Boehner had to cut and paste the budget bill into a... [more]

Roll Call Of Valentine's Day Patriot Act VoteThe passage of H.R. 514, a renewal of the Patriot Act's most abusive spying powers for the federal government, was like a valentine for Big Brother, given how it came at about dinner time on February 14 this year. The extension was rather insulting to everyone else, though, given how it came on the heels of new information about how often the Patriot Act is being abused - at the cost of Americans' privacy.
The Electronic Freedom Frontier searched through documents it forced the federal government to hand over through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, and found indications of tens... [more]

Gabrielle Giffords Shot In The HeadUPDATE: Remarkably, Gabrielle Giffords has survived the point blank gunshot to her head. After quick surgery, Giffords remains in critical condition, but physicians say that they are optimistic for a recovery of some sort.
The original article, written as media reported the death of Giffords, follows:
---------------------------------
U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords is dead. She was killed when a gunman shot her in the head from just four feet away. At least six other people are reported have been killed in the attack, and another half dozen wounded. A semiautomatic gun is reported to have been used in the assassination plot, which took place at a grocery store in Tucson, Arizona. It is not known... [more]

House Democrats Split In Two On TaxesLate last night, the House of Representatives voted to approve the legislation embodying Barack Obama's deal with congressional Republicans to pass a package of tax cuts that includes tax cuts for extremely wealthy Americans, with lowered contributions from investment income and no tax paid at all by heirs inheriting up to 10 million dollars. The tax deal is heavily weighted to favor the extremely wealthy, with typical American families getting a pittance of a benefit in comparison to the rewards given to the rich. Democrats in the House failed to significantly amend the Obama-GOP agreement to make it less regressive.
Pete DeFazio represented liberal fury at the House Democratic leadership's acquiescence to the irresponsible tax legislation, saying, "It will be a disaster for the American people. It is a bad deal... [more]

Which Democrats Support The Save Our Climate Act? Which Democrats Are Slacking Off?If you want economic justice, if you want corporations to be forced to take responsibility, if you want to see strong action to confront climate change, then you should support H.R. 3242, the Save Our Climate Act.
The brutal economic fact is this: We are all paying a carbon tax already. Only, it's not called a carbon tax. It's a hidden tax.
When residents of Southern states pay huge electric bills running their air conditioners as the temperature soars above 100 degrees for weeks on end, they're paying a carbon tax. When peoples' homes are destroyed in tornadoes and floods, they're paying a carbon tax. When entire neighborhoods are burned to the ground by increasing numbers of wildfires, the people who live there are paying a carbon... [more]

Obama Encourages State Of Denial About Offshore Drilling DangersLast year saw the biggest environmental disaster in the history of the United States of America - the oil spill set loose by the fatal explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling platform. If you only had Barack Obama's State of the Union Address to judge the last year, however, you would think that the Gulf of Mexico calamity had never happened.
More people were killed in the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon than were killed in the attack by Jared Lee Loughner against Gabrielle Giffords. However, though Gabrielle Giffords... [more]

Sarah Palin's Circular Blood LibelOh, the circles in Sarah Palin's mind.
Sarah Palin, it has been noted in the wake of the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, had published a graphic with a gun's crosshairs placed on Giffords's congressional district, along with the exhortation not to retreat, but to reload.
After a couple of days of silence, Sarah Palin has now responded to critics who accuse her of helping to create a cultural link among right wing activists between political activism and the use of firearms. Palin says,
"Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits... [more]